Kejriwal trumps Dikshit as Delhi CM choice, claims AAP survey

Arvind Kejriwal is the most popular choice for the next chief minister of Delhi, claims the latest survey carried out by his own Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

The AAP on Friday said the survey also revealed that the party’s vote share had increased to 28% from 26% in the last survey, and the party was leading in 32 seats.

The survey was carried out between September 5 and October 5 among all 70 assembly constituencies, covering 1,750 polling booths and 34,425 respondents.

“Given a choice of three leading parties, 38% people want AAP to form government, followed by 29% favouring Congress and 23% for BJP,” said the survey conducted by psephologist and AAP’s national executive member Yogendra Yadav, along with Delhi-based consultancy firm Cicero Associates.

Addressing a press conference here on Friday, Yadav said, “Given the rate at which our vote share has increased, not just in our own survey but also in those done by others, and assuming that our vote share increases in the same way, we can be confident of increasing it to 37%.”

Kejriwal, the party chief and likely CM candidate, agreed, “With 37% vote share, we can expect to win 45-50 seats.”

Kejriwal emerged as the people’s preference for CM with 36% votes, ahead of current chief minister Sheila Dikshit of Congress (30%) and BJP leader Vijay Goel (23%), according to the survey.

Among the seats where AAP is leading, 17 show a clear victory margin while 12 indicate a close call.

“The party needs to work on 21 seats, where it is trailing, but is on recoverable ground. Twelve seats show a significant trail,” said Yadav.

Among the most important issues for voters, drinking water came out on top (28%), followed by cleanliness (18%) and roads (11%).

Interestingly, for a party that built its base on anti-corruption campaigns, its own survey said corruption was an issue only for 3% voters.

Decoding the vote share pattern, the survey claimed AAP had more support from recent migrants (less than 10 years) as compared to those who had been in Delhi for more than 30 years. The latter group is inclined towards the Congress, the survey said.

Claiming that it had cut into the Congress strongholds of Muslim and Dalit votes, the AAP said the survey showed as many as 32% Dalits were supporting the AAP. The Muslim vote share for AAP is 26%, but the Congress is ahead with 46%. Though the AAP recently formed a Sikh Cell, support from this community is 27%, but less than that for the Congress (28%) and the BJP (36%).

The survey also revealed that though AAP is popular among the youth, there is a lack of support in the age group above 55.